Palindromes
by Romana Dante
Summary: Martha has only been with the Doctor for a short time, and already she's been locked in a dungeon four times, this time being no different. Martha is very VERY annoyed. Takes place shortly after Smith and Jones


_This just sort of hit me one day while I was bored in Spanish class...though it has nothing to do with Spanish...It actually comes from a play I'm in right now, where one of the characters is obsessed with palindromes...don't know why I thought of it during Spanish...oh well, I hope you enjoy it anyway:)_  


Palindromes

_By Romana Dante _

"Able was I ere I saw Elba"

"Thanks for that Doctor, very helpful."

"What? I was trying to lighten the mood a bit, prison cells are always so depressing, just once I'd like to see a lighter one…" Martha sighed, he had a point there. This was the fourth official prison cell she had been trapped in during the past few weeks, far more than she ever expected to be thrown in back at New Hope. Apparently, the whole "uncooperative strangers should be locked up in cold, dank dungeons rule" applied everywhere in the universe, _not _just that first planet.

Today, they were on the planet Calvandi, imprisoned for like after the Doctor had refused to fix the emperor's broken doomsday device. Had he agreed, the bomb's power would have been enough to completely destroy Calvandi's rival planet of Calvando, and of course the Doctor simply _couldn't_ have that. He had said no, and now they were here, imprisoned yet again in a dark, depressing dungeon with no means of escape or rescue.

Martha was annoyed.

"Any idea of how to get out of here?" she asked bitterly, "This isn't exactly what I wanted to do when I woke up this morning."

"Do you know what's interesting?' he blurted out, "about that sentence I said earlier?"

"What? 'Oh look we're in a prison cell again'? Not really."

"No, 'Able was I ere I saw Elba', do you know the interesting thing about that?"

"No," said Martha, eyeing the small-bared window at the top of the cell and secretly wondering how long it would take to bend the bars.

"It's a palindrome," said the Doctor, grinning.

"Really," Martha answered in mock interest, "how interesting."

"Do you know what that means?"

"Of course,"

"What is it?"

"A palindrome?"

"Yes," Martha rolled her eyes. It was like basic maths all over again.

"A palindrome is a number or a word that if turned backwards will read the same thing it did forwards," she recited, "so if you spell 'Eve' backward or something, it will still be 'Eve', or 2002 will still be 2002…"

"Or 'Able ere I saw I was Elba,"

"Seriously?" The Doctor grinned as Martha silently cursed herself for being interested in what he was saying. He was never going to let her forget this.

"Completely serious," he said smugly, writing the sentence in the dirt on the floor of the cell, "spell all the words backwards and you the same sentence all over again, try it, it really works," Martha sighed, then smiled, then started writing. Here she was, trapped in a dungeon with an alien she just barely knew and they were talking about puzzles. Forget forming an escape plan.

"Able was I ere I saw Elba," she read aloud once she was finished, "you were right."

"I was," he grinned, "did you really think I wouldn't be?"

"Suppose not," she teased, "though you did manage to mess this up fairly well…where was it you were trying to get to again, Coventry?"

"Coventry, Calvandi, same thing."

"Except for the prison part,"

"Well…yes, except for that…although, I've actually been imprisoned there too…"

"In Coventry?"

"Yep, year was…1066, I believe…" he scratched the back of his neck nervously, "probably better not to ask about that one…"

"Right," Martha glanced casually around the cell, still feeling hopelessly confined…and a bit bored. "So why the palindrome," she asked finally.

"What about it?"

"Why mention it?

"I dunno," the Doctor sighed, "distraction? Something to keep us occupied? It just sort of happened to be the first thing that popped into my head,"

"Right," said Martha, again, "That's definitely the first thing _I_ thought coming in here."

"Of course not," said the Doctor, "you're human, your first instinct is to escape, find a way out of here as quick as you can, impatient, you lot."

"And your lot weren't?"

"Definitely not," Martha smiled.

"That's funny"

"Why?"

"Because you're _never_ patient"

"I am too!" said the Doctor, insulted, "I'm very patient!"

"No you're not!" retorted Martha, trying desperately to hold back a laugh, "Have you seen yourself? Always bouncing around the console room, never wanting to sit still long enough to breath between planets, you're more impatient than my sister sometimes, and trust me that's saying something."

"I'm sitting still now, aren't I?"

"Yeah, but you had to bring up palindromes to do it,"

"Nothing wrong with palindromes…" the Doctor began.

"Course not," Martha interrupted, "It's just that…"

"In fact," said the Doctor, ignoring Martha's comment, "palindromes can be quite useful,"

"I'm sure, but…"

"They can break boredom, create clever names…make very nice wall decoration…"

"Yes, but…"

"Create whole years and phrases that don't quite make sense…"

"I know that, but…"

"Or, under very special circumstances, they can create just the right amount of confusion in certain now low-frequency destructive devices to trick them into doing something useful as opposed to killing entire worlds,"

"…What?" And then came the explosion. A massive eruption blew open a wall on the other side of the jail cell, leaving a large hole where there once stood a cement wall. The Doctor grinned and after shielding himself and Martha from the leftover flying rubble, stood up and held out a hand for her.

"Coming?" he asked simply.

"What the hell did you do?!"

"When I was examining the emperor's machine to 'figure out what it was' I entered a palindrome into it's main systems and told it to reverse it, thus confusing it enough to lower it's frequency and set it to send a small explosion to the sonic screwdriver without anyone knowing."

"That's why you left the screwdriver across the room…"

"Right," he grinned as Martha took his hand and stood up. She stared at him for a moment, taking in his smug expression, and then in one swift motion proceeded to slap him right on the cheek. His smile faded, "What was that for?!"

"You knew we'd escape!"

"Yes…"

"The whole time, you knew we'd escape and you couldn't have thought to tell me?"

"No, actually, I couldn't."

"And why not?"

"Because the jail cell was under surveillance," replied the Doctor, rubbing his cheek on the spot Martha had hit him, "If I'd told you anything, we'd have had armed guards in here before anything could happen. I needed to speak the password aloud so the machine would hear it through the surveillance and start my explosion program, but the guards wouldn't know I was doing it"

"And that password I'm assuming was…"

"Able was, I ere, I saw Elba, right!" the Doctor's grin returned, "Confuses machines and surveillance guards, now…"

"We should probably run, yeah?"

"Exactly," in a burst of energy that made Martha jump before she could run, the Doctor was off through the hole in the now demolished wall. Martha followed him outside, but stopped a moment to watch him continue on to the TARDIS. Most of the people that Martha knew back home, would have thought he was mad. A tall, skinny, English bloke in a bright blue suit rambling on about palindromes when they could be killed at any second. Often times, like today, Martha was highly inclined to agree with them. It was, however, also these sorts of days that made Martha strongly disagree with that opinion.

She grinned as she watched the strange blue-suited alien she had befriended run back to his tall, blue-box of a ship. Any man who could save a whole planet with a palindrome was worth the madness, and anyone who disagreed was madder. She may not have wanted a dungeon when she woke up this morning, but she did want a thrill, and with him she knew she would get it. Quickly as she could, she ran back to the TARDIS.


End file.
